Mermaid Reef Page 3

  “But where can we hide it?” Jasmine asked as she arrived, out of breath.

  “You can’t,” came a voice from above them.

  The girls gasped in horror as Queen Malice appeared overhead, riding on top of a gigantic black stingray. She snatched the wishing pearl from its shell.

  “Ha!” Queen Malice gave a triumphant laugh. “It’s mine and there’s nothing you can do about it! Finally I will get what I deserve!”

  As the girls watched in dismay, she held the pearl high above her head and cried, “I wish I was the ruler of the Secret Kingdom, and all my subjects obeyed me!”

  All at once there was a huge shudder and the water rippled around the girls. Summer, Jasmine, and Ellie grabbed one another’s hands to steady themselves.

  Queen Malice laughed wickedly as she put her hands up to her head to touch the pointy crown that now rested there — it was King Merry’s crown!

  One of the sprites took the flippers off his hands and dug his pointy fingers into the bubble that surrounded him. It burst with a loud pop. The others followed and, snickering, they paddled over to Queen Malice, cheering and laughing.

  “Silence!” Queen Malice commanded, turning to look at Lady Merlana and Trixi. “Greet your ruler!” she demanded.

  Lady Merlana bent her tail and gave a deep bow, and Trixi flew up to Queen Malice and curtsied to her. “How can I serve you, Your Majesty?” the little pixie asked in a strange, blank voice.

  Summer gasped. “What’s happening?” she whispered to Jasmine and Ellie. “Why are Trixi and Lady Merlana doing what she says?”

  “It must be the wish,” Ellie said. “We seem to be the only ones who aren’t affected.”

  “It’s got to be because we’re not from the Secret Kingdom,” Summer said. “So we’re not her subjects!”

  Queen Malice turned to look at them. Before Ellie or Summer could move, Jasmine had dropped into a deep curtsy. “Your Royal Highness,” she said, turning her head and winking at her friends.

  The Storm Sprites all sneered.

  “Enough!” Queen Malice snapped. “There will be lots of time to taunt these meddling girls when they’re locked in my dungeons! Now everyone follow me back to the yacht!”

  “Yes, my queen,” Lady Merlana and Trixi chanted, as if they were hypnotized.

  “Yes, my queen,” the girls repeated.

  Queen Malice pulled on the reins and her stingray started swimming up toward the yacht. Ellie, Summer, and Jasmine followed along behind Trixi, Lady Merlana, and the Storm Sprites.

  “Good idea, Jasmine,” Ellie whispered. “Now she thinks her wish has affected us, too.”

  “Thanks,” Jasmine said. “But we still need to find a way to stop her!”

  The girls looked ahead at Queen Malice, who was cackling to herself and wishing for more and more things. They watched as she passed a jeweled coronet and a pair of diamond shoes back for the Storm Sprites to carry. Finally she passed the pearl to the sprite behind her and urged the stingray to swim faster.

  “We’ve got to get that pearl back!” Summer said determinedly. “Before things get any worse!”

  “I have an idea,” Ellie said. “Follow my lead!”

  The three girls kicked forward with their feet until they were swimming alongside the lead sprite.

  “You’re so lucky to be Queen Malice’s servant,” Ellie said to the sprite enviously. “It’s such an important job.”

  “Yeah,” Jasmine joined in. “I wish we could do something to help her.”

  The sprite looked pleased. “Oh, we’ve got lots of jobs that you can do!” He laughed nastily. “You can clean out the gnome toilets and cook the bats’ breakfast and feed the stink toads.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Jasmine said, acting as though the sprite had just given her a piece of chocolate cake. But her eyes were fixed on the pearl, which he was holding with his pointy fingers. It was moving up and down as he swam, so close she could almost touch it….

  “Hurry up, back there!” Queen Malice snarled. “Can’t you swim any faster? I want to go back to my castle and start causing chaos all around the kingdom!”

  “Yes, Your Majesty!” the sprites chorused obediently.

  “I could swim a lot faster without all of this stuff …” the sprite nearest to Summer grumbled under his breath as he dragged along a treasure chest that was overflowing with jewels. He looked over at Summer and a smile crossed his face. “I know! You can carry it all!” He dumped the heavy box into Summer’s arms gleefully.

  The other sprites laughed as they saw Summer struggling under the weight of the chest.

  “Good idea!” one chuckled as he passed a silver cloak and a huge mirror to Ellie. “You can take this.”

  “Yeah!” said the lead sprite. “And this, too!” He passed Jasmine the wishing pearl.

  Jasmine gasped at she looked down at the wishing pearl in her hands. The sprite suddenly realized his mistake and reached for the pearl, but it was too late.

  “I wish all Queen Malice’s wishes were undone and she was far away from here!” Jasmine shouted.

  “Noooooooo!” Queen Malice screamed, trying uselessly to hold on to King Merry’s crown as a vast whirlpool started twirling around her, twisting it away from her grasping fingers.

  The Storm Sprites swam over and tried to catch her and pull her out, but they were sucked into the whirlpool, too.

  “You haven’t won!” Queen Malice screeched as she spun farther and farther into the watery hole. “I’ll get all of you! One day I will rule the kingdom…. Just you wait and seeeeeeee!”

  All at once the whirlpool disappeared, and the girls were left floating next to Lady Merlana and Trixi, who were shaking their heads as if they were waking up from a bad dream.

  Jasmine turned to Lady Merlana and handed her the wishing pearl. “I think this belongs to you.” She grinned.

  “How can I ever thank you enough?” Lady Merlana asked, hugging each of the girls in turn. “You’ve saved us all!”

  As they swam back into Mermaid Reef, Jasmine, Ellie, and Summer could see the rest of the merpeople gathered outside the castle, waiting for them to return.

  “Don’t worry,” Ellie shouted as they got closer. “Queen Malice and her nasty Storm Sprites are gone!”

  King Merry and Rosie swam over to greet them.

  “Did you lose this?” Ellie asked King Merry as she handed him his crown.

  King Merry patted his head. “Oh my goodness!” he cried out. “Thank you very much.”

  Rosie bobbed up to Summer, who held out her little finger so that the seahorse could curl her tail around it.

  “Yes, thank you,” Lady Merlana said to the girls as she cradled the precious wishing pearl carefully in her arms. “You’ve stopped Queen Malice from using the wishing pearl to bring disaster to Mermaid Reef, and you’ve saved the Secret Kingdom once again.”

  “There’s still one thing we haven’t fixed, though,” Ellie reminded her. “We still need to break Queen Malice’s thunderbolt to get the judges back.”

  Lady Merlana put her hands to her mouth in surprise. “I was so relieved to have the wishing pearl back that I almost forgot!” she gasped. “We have to finish the Sound of the Sea Competition!”

  “The show must go on!” Jasmine smiled.

  Lady Merlana led everyone back to Coral Castle. The merpeople returned to the audience and Jasmine, Summer, and Ellie took their places in the judges’ chairs.

  The girls huddled together at the table to discuss the acts. They all agreed that Nerissa, the mermaid whose tears turned to pearls, and Orcan, the merman who sang with the whale, were the best acts. But they just couldn’t decide who was better.

  “They both sang wonderfully, but I think Nerissa was the best performer,” said Jasmine.

  “I liked Orcan and the whale,” Summer said shyly.

  “The audience cheered just as loudly for both of them,” added Ellie, thinking hard. “I know!” she declared suddenly.

  She t
old her idea to Summer and Jasmine, who both nodded happily. Then she floated over to Lady Merlana and whispered in her ear.

  Lady Merlana smiled, then floated to the center of the stage. A hush fell over the audience.

  “Mermaids and mermen,” she started. “We’ve had a wonderful competition this year and all our contestants deserve a big round of applause.”

  The audience flapped their tails down on the sea floor and the hall filled with claps and cheers.

  Eventually Lady Merlana held up her hand for silence.

  Trixi, King Merry, and Rosie looked at one another excitedly as they waited for Lady Merlana to announce the winner. Which act had the girls chosen?

  “Ellie, Summer, and Jasmine have made a decision,” Lady Merlana continued, “… and … for the first time ever …” She stopped and everyone in the audience held their breath.

  “We have a tie!” she declared. “The winners are Nerissa and Orcan.”

  Trixi and King Merry exchanged grins of delight. The audience cheered wildly as Lady Merlana put garlands of colorful sea anemones around the winners’ necks, then presented each of them with a starfish medal.

  Glowing algae lit up the sea around Nerissa and Orcan as they hugged each other and Lady Merlana, crying tears of happiness.

  Suddenly there was a loud cracking sound from somewhere backstage.

  “It sounds like the thunderbolt has broken!” gasped Ellie.

  There was a burst of bubbles and the merperson judges appeared in front of them, looking a little dazed.

  “You’ve broken Queen Malice’s spell!” Trixi cheered.

  “Have we missed the competition?” Cordelia asked worriedly.

  Lady Merlana explained how the girls had taken their places and stopped Queen Malice from stealing the wishing pearl.

  “Oh, thank you!” Cordelia cried. “You saved the day!”

  “We should be thanking all of you!” exclaimed Ellie. “We’ve had such a wonderful time here that now we don’t want to go home!”

  “Well, there’s one more thing you simply have to see,” said Lady Merlana as she beckoned Nerissa and Orcan over. She turned to the singers and smiled. “It’s time for you to make a wish on the pearl,” she told them.

  Everyone gathered around as Nerissa and Orcan floated in front of the magic pearl. They both looked very thoughtful for a moment, and then Nerissa leaned over and whispered something in Orcan’s ear.

  Orcan smiled and nodded. “We’ve decided,” he said seriously.

  “We’d like to give our wish to Jasmine, Ellie, and Summer,” Nerissa said with a smile. “After all, if it wasn’t for them, the wishing pearl would still be in Queen Malice’s hands!”

  Jasmine, Ellie, and Summer gasped in surprise. Nerissa and Orcan swam over to give them the pearl, and the three girls laid their hands on it.

  “Whatever are we going to wish for?” Ellie asked.

  “I know what I’d like,” Summer said shyly. Her friends leaned in to listen to her. “I’d love to see how it feels to be a mermaid, and to have a beautiful tail of my own!”

  Jasmine and Ellie grinned. What a brilliant idea!

  “We wish that we could be mermaids — just for a little while,” Jasmine said.

  The wishing pearl glowed brightly, bathing them all in sparkly pink light.

  Ellie shut her eyes, and when she opened them she saw that she had a gorgeous orangey-red tail that matched her hair! She looked over and saw that Summer now had a pretty seaweed green tail, and Jasmine had a shimmering silver one.

  “We’re mermaids!” Ellie cried, flicking her tail and somersaulting in excitement. “We’re really mermaids!”

  The girls spent the rest of the day swimming around, chasing the other mermaids, and playing hide-and-seek — which was a lot harder when you could turn invisible!

  But all too soon the wish wore off and the girls’ tails turned back into legs.

  “We should probably go home,” Jasmine said reluctantly.

  “But we’ve had such an amazing time!” Summer added.

  Lady Merlana hugged them all good-bye. “I’ve got a gift for you as well,” she said, holding out a beautiful silver pearl. It looked like a small version of the wishing pearl.

  “This is to say thank you,” she said. “You can use it to turn invisible, just like merpeople do.” She handed it to Jasmine — who promptly disappeared.

  “This is wonderful.” Jasmine giggled as she invisibly tickled Summer and Ellie.

  “It doesn’t last for long,” Lady Merlana warned them. “So you’ll have to be careful when you use it. But hopefully it will help you fight Queen Malice’s horrible magic.”

  Lady Merlana hugged each girl again and then swam back to her subjects.

  Trixi, Rosie, and King Merry rushed over to say good-bye, too.

  “You will come back soon, won’t you?” King Merry asked worriedly. “There are still two more thunderbolts hidden in the kingdom, and we’ll never be able to destroy them without you.”

  “Of course we will,” Jasmine told him. “We’ll come whenever you need us.”

  The girls waved good-bye to their new friends as Trixi tapped her ring and created a whirlpool that spun around them and transported them back to the human world.

  A few seconds later they found themselves back in the girls’ room at school, as if they’d never left.

  “I’d forgotten we were at school!” Ellie gasped. “How funny that we have to go to English class now, when we’ve spent all lunchtime swimming with mermaids!”

  “Lunch isn’t over yet, silly,” Jasmine reminded her. “It’s the same time now as when we left. Which is lucky, because I’m still hungry!”

  “We’d better put our new gift away before we go and eat,” said Ellie, holding out the Magic Box.

  The lid on the box sprang open, and Jasmine carefully put the special pearl into one of the empty compartments.

  “I wonder where we’ll go for our next adventure,” said Summer.

  “I don’t care,” giggled Ellie. “But I hope we go during school time again — visiting the Secret Kingdom is much more fun than being in class!”

  In the next Secret Kingdom adventure, Ellie, Summer, and Jasmine visit

  Magic Mountain

  Read on for a sneak peek …

  “I’m Queen Malice!” cried the girl in black. She shook her long, dark hair back from her face. “Get them, Storm Sprites!” Two small creatures with black wings ran into the room and cackled nastily.

  Summer Hammond and Ellie Macdonald squealed and dived over the living room sofa. The girl in black was only their friend Jasmine Smith, dressed in an old sheet and waving a thunderbolt made from a painted stick. But her acting was so good that it almost seemed like nasty Queen Malice was in the room!

  The Storm Sprites were Summer’s little brothers, Finn and Connor, dressed up to look like Queen Malice’s horrible gray-skinned, spiky-fingered helpers. Ellie had tucked old towels into their T-shirts and folded them in the shape of the Storm Sprites’ batlike wings.

  The boys shrieked with excitement and ran across the room to grab Summer’s legs as she tried to scrunch herself up behind the sofa.

  “Got you!” Connor giggled.

  “That’s what you think.” Summer laughed, jumping up and tickling him. Ellie did the same to Finn.

  “Foolish sprites!” scolded Jasmine in a dramatic voice. “Do I have to do everything myself?” She poked Summer with the thunderbolt stick.

  “Connor, Finn!” Summer’s stepdad called from the kitchen. “Bath time!”

  Summer let Connor go and went to the door. “They’re coming!” she called back. “Sorry, guys,” she told her little brothers. “We have to stop playing now.”

  “But I want to be a Storm Sprite,” said three-year-old Finn, sticking out his bottom lip.

  “Storm Sprites aren’t real, silly,” five-year-old Connor told him scornfully.

  Summer grinned at Jasmine and Ellie over her brothers’
heads. Little did the boys know that Storm Sprites were real, and that they lived in a magical land called the Secret Kingdom!

  The Secret Kingdom was a wonderful place full of pixies, unicorns, mermaids, and all kinds of magical creatures, but it was in trouble — and only Ellie, Summer, and Jasmine could help.

  One day not very long ago, the girls had found a magical box at a school rummage sale that had transported King Merry, the ruler of the Secret Kingdom, and his royal pixie, Trixi, to the human world. King Merry and Trixi had asked the girls for their help in stopping Queen Malice, the king’s evil sister, from causing trouble in the kingdom.

  Queen Malice had been so angry when King Merry had been chosen to rule the Secret Kingdom instead of her that she had hidden six horrible thunderbolts around the land. She had cast spells on each of the thunderbolts so they would cause chaos and ruin all the fun in the kingdom.

  Jasmine, Ellie, and Summer had already found four of the thunderbolts and broken their nasty spells. But until the Magic Box called them into the kingdom again, all they could do was play at fighting Queen Malice and the Storm Sprites!

  Summer, Ellie, and Jasmine helped Finn and Connor take off their costumes, then sent them off to take a bath.

  The girls headed up toward Summer’s room to watch a DVD. As they passed the big window in the hall, they saw it was dark and frigid outside.

  “Maybe it will snow again tonight,” said Jasmine hopefully.

  “Brrrr,” said Ellie, pushing her wiry red curls back from her face as she looked into the gloomy garden. “Perfect weather for a sleepover!” She grinned.

  They went into Summer’s room, which was painted a soft yellow and had lots of animal posters all over the walls. Summer put on her comfy old yellow-flowered pajamas. Ellie got into her green-and-purple pair and then they both admired Jasmine’s shorts and tank set, which were brand-new and covered with big pink polka dots.